Disk Encryption Remains Best Safeguard to Protect Enterprise Data

Share Article

Yet another has company announced that it has notified its customers that their sensitive information may have been exposed when an employee’s laptop computer was stolen.

The announcement, made yesterday by Minneapolis-based Ameriprise Financial Inc., that more than 226,000 records had been stolen demonstrates how a growing number of companies are “going public” about security breaches in order to give consumers a chance to protect against identity theft.

The Ameriprise announcement was followed today by the news that the Federal Trade Commission has fined data aggregator ChoicePoint Inc. $10 million for a breach place last March that affected more than 140,000 consumers and spawned dozens of state and federal information security laws.

Companies that publicize data security breaches often feel pain that goes deeper than negative publicity or fines, however. A recent survey shows that consumers will switch companies when their personal data has not been properly safeguarded, and other research suggests that security breaches will affect a company’s stock market valuations.

As a market leader in reducing the cost and complexity of enterprise data protection, GuardianEdge Technologies Inc. offers Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk, an enterprise data encryption solution used by hundreds of companies around the world to protect sensitive data stored on laptops and eliminate the penalties associated with data security breaches.

Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk is part of the Encryption Anywhere Data Protection Platform, a flexible, scaleable data protection solution geared to the needs of large enterprises.

Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk uses a government certified AES cryptographic algorithm and a 256-bit encryption key to protect 100% of the data on a Windows hard drive – including the master boot record, the operating system files, applications and all data files. The program even encrypts unused sectors of the hard drive to assure air-tight security of computer and network systems.

Data encryption is recognized by information security experts as the most cost-effective technology available for protecting sensitive information from theft and accidental exposure. A September 2005 report by Gartner Inc., states that a company with at least 100,000 customer accounts to protect can spend, in the first year, as little as $6 per account for just data encryption or as much as $16 per customer account for data encryption, host-based intrusion prevention and strong security audits combined. This compares with an expenditure of at least $90 per customer account when data is compromised or exposed during a breach.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of using Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk in the enterprise is that allows an organization to ‘encrypt and forget.’ Once the program is installed, every byte stored on the encrypted devices is fully protected. If a computer is stolen, lost or left unattended, Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk makes sure the information is inaccessible.

Encryption Anywhere Hard Disk is available from directly from GuardianEdge Technologies, as well as from numerous resellers and distributors worldwide. Visit the GuardianEdge Web site for more information: http://www.guardianedge.com

GuardianEdge Technologies Inc.

GuardianEdge is a market leader in reducing the cost and complexity of enterprise data security. Customers around the world depend on GuardianEdge solutions to protect sensitive and proprietary information, to ensure compliance with rules for safeguarding privacy, and to enable secure enterprise mobility. Established in 1984, GuardianEdge is headquartered in San Francisco and serves an installed base of more than half a million active users at leading global corporate and governmental organizations, including Lockheed Martin Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Humana Inc. For more information, visit http://www.guardianedge.com/